


for you (i'd bleed myself dry)

by Luna_Myth



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Universe, Discussion of Regeneration (Doctor Who), Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s11e05 The Tsuranga Conundrum, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Needs a Hug, Time Lord Telepathy (Doctor Who), post episode, self destructive tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_Myth/pseuds/Luna_Myth
Summary: Back on the TARDIS after the debacle on theTsuranga,Yaz asks the Doctor a question about something that's been bothering her."Any idea why the sonic mine hurt you so badly?"
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	for you (i'd bleed myself dry)

**Author's Note:**

> titled inspired by jodie whittaker's cover of yellow by coldplay. enjoy this fic based on a headcanon i've been kicking around for a hot minute.

The Doctor becomes visibly relieved once they’re all safely back in the TARDIS. Some of the tension goes out of her shoulders, and she looks around with a renewed sense of interest, like she can pay attention to other people again now that she’s not so worried about her ship. Yaz has only know her for a few weeks so far, as best she can tell with all the time-traveling, but she already knows that the Doctor is, for whatever reason, very protective of the TARDIS, so she doesn’t blame the alien woman for her worry. She trusts the Doctor’s judgement, and if the TARDIS is the priority, there must be a good reason. And the TARDIS is the only way for Yaz, Ryan, and Graham to get home, so it could just be that her concern for the TARDIS is also concern for the three humans she’s picked up and promised to return home. Yaz could see this too. 

“Right,” says the Doctor, pulling a lever on the TARDIS while looking over the humans. “That’s our semi-disastrous semi-successful adventure done. Always one of those sprinkled in with the more low-stakes adventures, but we shouldn’t be due for another right away, so where are we off to? Somewhere a bit more historical as a bit of a palette cleanser? Somewhere totally new? Barcelona? The planet, not the city. I haven’t been in a while, and I’ve been meaning to--” 

“That all sounds great, Doc, but I reckon we should take a bit of a breather first,” Graham interjects. “I don’t know about you, but I fancy a cup of tea and a sit down after all that.” 

“Oh. Right.” The Doctor pulls a few more levers and flips a few more switches on the TARDIS, presumably taking them into the time vortex for the time being. “That makes sense. You know where the kitchen is. Have at it. I might even join you in a bit, once everything’s sorted out here.” 

She smiles, and Graham heads off to the kitchen. Ryan pauses only long enough to say, “Hey, good job in there by the way,” to the Doctor and Yaz, before heading off too. 

Yaz shakes her head, amused. “He’s nice, isn’t he?” 

“Who, Ryan?” The Doctor is doing something with the TARDIS console, although Yaz can’t tell what. She isn’t looking at her, focused instead on a small screen and something that looks like a keyboard. “He is. All three of you are. I’m glad to have you aboard. You all handled yourselves well back there. And the time before that. And before that. Points all around.” 

“Do you get points too?” Yaz asks, wandering over to sit on the steps near the console. She could go for tea, but something about leaving the Doctor alone in the console room feels wrong, and she’d much rather keep her company anyway. 

“Good question. Do I?” The Doctor tilts her head like she does sometimes when she’s trying to remember something. “If I do, I wouldn’t give myself too many for that latest adventure. Far from my finest work, I’ll be honest.” 

“Why not?” Yaz has to ask. “You got me, Graham, and Ryan back to the TARDIS, and you probably saved those passengers from the Pting. It was out there whether or not we were there, so it’s a good thing we were. Otherwise Resus One would’ve blown up the ship, assuming the Pting didn’t get everyone first.” 

“Still two casualties, though,” the Doctor admits, and it takes Yaz a moment to place that it’s guilt in her voice. As if she feels responsible for their deaths. For not having saved them. 

“You can’t save everyone,” Yaz says bluntly. “You did your best. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” 

The Doctor shakes her head and side-steps over to a different screen on the TARDIS console. Yaz doesn’t know who designed this ship, but based on the number of buttons and monitors, it looks like it was designed for operation by more people than just the Doctor. Or maybe just someone with a different configuration of limbs and eyes. 

“Well, I wouldn’t call that opening my best, but we got the job done eventually, I suppose,” she says, pulling up a menu in a language Yaz can’t read. The TARDIS normally translates everything for her, but apparently that doesn’t extend to user interface with the ship itself. Perhaps the TARDIS only trusts the Doctor with that kind of information. More evidence for Yaz’s running list of ways the time machine is strangely sentient, not least of which is the way the Doctor talks to it. 

“Speaking of which, are you okay?” Yaz peers at the Doctor with a furrowed brow from her place on the steps. ”That sonic mine seemed to hit you really hard compared with the rest of us.” Even Graham had woken up before the Doctor, causing Yaz to fear that something about the Doctor’s different biology had made her more susceptible to the mine or more difficult to treat by the crew of the  _ Tsuranga _ . Even when she had woken up, she’d still seemed to be in more pain than Yaz and the others, who’d mostly just felt sore but not overtly injured. 

“I’m fine,” the Doctor says, closing out of the unknown menu and opening a different one. “Like I said, not my finest work. Shouldn’t have complained that much. Really not that bad. Not even top ten, fifteen, worst pains I’ve felt. I’ve been shot, you know. Human projectile weapons in the 1990s. Had my hand cut off one time. Lots of experience with radiation damage.” 

She seems prepared to go on, so Yaz stops her, asking, “Any idea why the sonic mine hurt you so badly?” 

The Doctor adjusts a dial on the TARDIS screen and cocks her head quizzically again. “Probably because I jumped on it,” she says, flipping another switch. 

Yaz freezes on the steps. Her feet are twisted under her and her arm is at an awkward angle, but all she can think is,  _ I can’t have heard that right _ . She had been expecting something technical, about acoustic angles or alien biology or just dumb luck--anything but the idea that the Doctor had been hurt more  _ because she had taken the blast for them _ . Yaz blinks and stares at the alien woman in front of her. The Doctor is still busy at the console, hands flying over buttons and levers without any idea that she’s said anything strange at all. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Yaz unfreezes and stretches her legs out in front of her. She is staring at the Doctor and considering getting to her feet. 

The Doctor looks up, brow knit with gentle confusion. “I jumped on the sonic mine. You know. To keep you all safe. Are you okay, Yaz? You look sort of stunned.” 

Yaz does feel stunned, but she brushes it off and stands up. “Why would you do something like that?” 

“I just told you.” The Doctor goes back to her work. “To keep you all safe. I’m responsible for getting you home. Can’t do that if your insides are liquified.” 

Her tone is matter-of-fact, but Yaz is still having trouble keeping up. 

“But...what if it had just killed you? How would we have gotten home then?” She doesn’t understand why the Doctor would do something so seemingly reckless if she cares so much about getting them home. 

“Well, it didn’t, so there’s that,” the Doctor says, flashing Yaz a quick smile that fails to reassure her. “But second, even if it had killed me, you all still would’ve been fine. The TARDIS has emergency protocols to take you all home in the event something happens to me, and I probably would’ve just regenerated anyway. No worries.” 

“‘No worries?’” Yaz repeats incredulously. “What about you? Don’t you become a whole new person or something when you regenerate? I know you were proper out of it when we first met. And just because it didn’t kill you doesn’t mean it’s all okay. No wonder you took so long to wake up on the  _ Tsuranga _ .” 

Yaz’s shock has given way to an extremely belated flurry of emotions. Worry, gratitude, anger, fear, confusion. She doesn’t know where the anger came from, except that already the idea of a universe without the Doctor in it--her Doctor--fills her with a sense of outrage she can’t quite place. Looking over her friend, confused but alive by the TARDIS control console, she feels the relief she’d felt upon the Doctor waking up again, but this time it’s tinted with something else as well, something almost sad. 

“But I did wake up, so what’s the trouble?” The Doctor finally stops adjusting the controls on the TARDIS and turns to face Yaz, leaning back against the console. Her arms are crossed and her face is carefully neutral, but Yaz can see a storm of racing thoughts in her eyes. 

“I don’t know,” Yaz admits. “Just don’t like the idea of you taking a big hit like that. If something happened to you, I’d be really upset.” 

The Doctor’s face softens. “That’s fair. Thank you...for caring, I guess. I know caring can be really hard sometimes, but it’s important so...thanks.” 

“No problem,” says Yaz, touched despite herself. She wonders what made the Doctor say that, but instead she says, “Back at ya, really. I don’t really fancy you going around jumping on mines, but thanks for caring enough to do it.” 

“Well, hopefully it won’t have to happen again,” the Doctor replies, a tight smile quirking her lips. She hesitates for a moment, something unfamiliar flashing in her eyes, before continuing. “Listen, I, um--I’m still sort of new to this body, but I don’t think I’m up for a lot of touch. Still, I feel like I should do something, so, if you’ll indulge me…” 

Yaz steps forward, curious, and the Doctor pulls away from the TARDIS console, extending a hand for her to take. She does so, surprised to find the Doctor’s hand is rather smaller and colder than she’d expected but otherwise perfectly ordinary. It always surprises Yaz that the Doctor is only around her height, her personality making her seem larger than life. 

The Doctor squeezes her hand as it hovers in the space between them. “I don’t want anything to happen to you or the others. That’s all there is to it. Anything I can do to keep you safe, I’m going to do it. Is that okay, Yaz?” 

Yaz blinks, swearing she can feel  _ something _ through the connection of their hands. A golden consciousness, sincere and kind and old, and she knows instinctively it’s the Doctor. “Yeah, okay,” she says, squeezing back. “Just keep yourself safe too, yeah?” 

“Of course.” The Doctor lets go of Yaz’s hand, and the connection disappears. Without thinking, Yaz rubs the spot where they’d been touching with her other hand, studying the Doctor as she checks something on one of the TARDIS screens again. 

“We should be good here if you want to join the boys for tea?” she says, her voice coming up at the end to make it sound like a question. “I could go for tea.” 

“Sure.” Yaz smiles and starts to head for the kitchen, glancing behind her to make sure the Doctor is following. She is. “Are you going to tell the boys you jumped on the mine for them?” 

The Doctor shrugs. “I don’t want to bother them about it, but I will if they ask.” 

“Good enough for me.” Yaz spots the entrance to the kitchen, which is on the left side of the hall this time. She’s noticed the TARDIS doesn’t seem to like keeping rooms in consistent places. “Let’s have tea. I reckon we’ve earned it.” 


End file.
